Fire Mike Sherman Pt. 2

I said it two games into the season and I'm saying it again. There's no excuse for yesterday's loss (well except maybe Ryan Longwell's foot). Green Bay played not to lose the whole second half. No blitzes on Culpepper after having great success going at him in the first. What happens? The Vikings offense comes alive. Then, on the game-tying drive Sherman calls for a draw play on 3rd and 2 when Favre was hot the whole way down the field and you have the 3rd string running back in the game. Why merely try to tie a game and send it to overtime rather than march down and try to win it? That is what you call coaching with no balls.

I'm sorry, I know the outcome of the game usually depends more on the execution of the players than the coaching, but it's hard to look past the fact that despite his good record with the Packers, Sherman never wins in big games. I was glad when they stripped the GM title from him last Spring but the man really isn't the answer here at coach either. He runs a country club training camp (which leads to more injuries), doesn't know how to motivate his players, and doesn't make the right calls when the game is on the line. Smart man, probably a great coordinator, but not a strong enough head coach.

The season is all but over for the Pack after a 1-5 start and an even further depleted offense with injuries to Ahman Green and Robert Ferguson yesterday. The sad part is, Brett Favre is playing as good of football as he has any time in the past five years. Yesterday's statline: 28 of 35 for 315 yards, 2 TDs and 0 INTs. That's probably his best performance in two seasons -- need I remind you, with only one of his starting receivers! We can only hope that the man's love for the game will be enough to bring him back in '06.

*Sigh* Time to start looking at the top '06 draft prospects.

At least fantasy football has been fun. My records in my two leagues are 6-1 and 5-2, respectively. In the latter -- the more competitive league -- my team MVP is the Colts Defense/Special Teams. I don't know if that says my team is sad or that I made a real good pick but they've definitely won a few games for me.

On a non-football front, I have a third (and final?) interview for the Marketing & New Business position at the industrial design firm tomorrow. The mock project presentation really wowed the interview managers. The potiential client they assigned me was someone they've already been working with, so it was clutch that my research was right on, and they really liked the marketing ideas I concepted as well. Hopefully I'll have some good news to report back on the next post.

Saw Wedding Crashers over the weekend again with the girlfriend. I forgot how absolutely hilarious Chazz Reingold is -- one of the best niche characters ever. Not too many big movies out that I'd like to see right now but there's a lot of great independent stuff out including Capote, Good Luck and Goodnight, and The Squid and The Whale. I just signed up for a Netflix account a few weeks ago and I love it. My que is nicely backed up with a list of movies that I probably wouldn't go rent over new releases if I was making a trip to Blockbuster.

I still need to pick up the new Matt Pond PA album. The songs I have heard are great though. Go check it out if you like good music.

Cheers,

EH

CURRENT LISTENING: 1972 from Josh Rouse and new Bloc Party tracks

Believe it or not, I still post here

So it's been a little while....okay, a long while. Here's a few things that have gone on in my life and the world at large since I last posted:

- I scratched my cornea after getting accidentally poked in the eye amid the post-game celebration of the Gophers' Homecoming game win over Purdue in double-OT
- The gulf coast was hit with another hurricane
- Paris Hilton and her fiance broke up...and no one seemed to care
- The Gophers got smoked by Penn State in Happy Valley
- Tom DeLay was indicted
- The Packers lost more games and started out 0-4 for the first time since the Lindy Infante era
- Ryan Adams released another album, this time going back to his alt-country roots
- I had a job interview at an Industrial Design firm
- Major League Baseball playoffs started...I for one, didn't care
- NHL season play came back...see above
- A major earthquake shook Pakistan
- The Gophers beat #21 Michigan in The Big House
- The Packers got their first victory of the season beating the New Orleans Saints TO THE TUNE OF 52-3
...and last, but certainly not least: Word of Minnesota Vikings throwing a sex party with strippers (or prostitutes?) aboard two rented luxury boats on Lake Minnetonka goes abuzz in the media

I have nowhere near the time or energy to ruminate on all of these happenings and I'm quite sure my opinion about a lot of them would be about as valuable to you as a second youknowwhat hole. What has been lingering on my mind quite a bit lately is my place in life and what I'm going to do in the immediate future. My daily search for jobs usually brings me to the same point of discouragement, though I did recently have an interview for an opportunity that I felt a spike of excitement for (more on that later). The marketing jobs I usually find captivate me about as much as the Twins season-ending series with the Detriot Tigers and I've even started to question whether I still want to go into marketing. What I think would make me happy right now is a copywriting job at a great ad agency, and that isn't possible without a knock-em-dead portfolio. So go to portfolio school, right? Well, if it weren't for the fact that doing so is another $30,000 education investment for a career in a dangerously volitale industry, I'd be there right now. But let's hypothetically take away the big investment and risk involved in it all. I still have issues because my subconscious has also weighed the fact that I should be doing something with my life that makes a more positive impact on the world than generating more consumption. So what is my true calling? Fuck me...I'm having a post-college crisis.

Let's jump out of my sub-conscious and into the real world. The job interview I had last week was with this unique design firm that takes existing products and re-invents them for companies. The position was a Marketing & New Business Development post that they were creating -- sort of a jack-of-all-trades that would handle potential client research, new business marketing and a little PR. The position sounded interesting to me and it would be part of a company that does something to improve people's lives. Yet I go to the interview, come out of it, and have second thoughts on whether I should be there, somewhere else, or sitting in a damn portfolio school class. I still have interest in the position and I'm actually spending time this week on a mock project before having another interview, but I just don't know. It would really be easier if someone came to me in a dream and told me the path that I should follow...or a new one to pave.

I don't know what's with all of the existentialism and self-reflection I've been having lately but I hope I find my way soon. Other things have been good. The Packers finally got a win, and a big one at that. Things are great with my girlfriend. My brother is coming to town this weekend for the Battle of Paul Bunyan's Axe (Wisconsin vs. Minnesota football game). I think I could still use a vacation like I've been talking about for the last couple months. It's not that I deserve one because of an uber-stressful 30-hour work week -- I just need that escape for a few days to completely clear my mind.

Excuse the rant. I'll leave you with a semi-interesting read: Fortune's new list of The 25 People We Envy Most. I don't know if I'd want to be in the shoes of all of them but I can tell you right now that if I was doing what Tiger Woods, Jon Stewart, Theo Epstein, or Jake Burton do I wouldn't have any second-thoughts about my career path.

Until the next episode...

- EH

CURRENT LISTENING: New music by Matt Pond PA, New Pornographers, and Ryan Adams sprinkled with does of Mike Jones for good times' sake